Reading Update
Well, I got a slew of suggestions for what to read next. The list below was culled from the comments, but I must specifically thank Pim Milo from Holland for emailing me what must be the definitive photography bibliography containing over 500 titles. Whoa.
River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit. (About Muybridge.)
Another Way of Telling by John Berger
Looking at Photographs by John Szarkowski
Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primerby Vik Muniz
The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer
Cruel and Tender by Emma Dexter, Thomas Weski - 2003 show at Tate Modern
Arresting Images by Steven C. Dubin
Autobiography by Helmut Newton
The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton
The Photography Reader, edited by Liz Wells
Towards a Philosophy of Photography by Vilem Flusser
By Geoffrey Batchen:
Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance - recent show at ICP
Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography
Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History
Veronica's Revenge by Elizabeth Janus (this collection was recently auctioned off)
Photography After Photography - GB+ Arts
Feels like I've got to digest Batchen's work, a sizeable chunk of Szarkowski and some history from Beumont Newhall (which no one suggested but was on my list already.)
Stacy asked about my opinions of Sontag and Barthes, mentioned in the previous post. I haven't had time to elaborate, but the short answer is I had exactly the opposite reaction. Too much of Barthes in college, I think. Perhaps something is lost in translation, but I find Barthes' thinking to be a bit convoluted and ends in a "huh?" Sontag is more accessible, made for good subay reading.
I would add "Art and Photography" by David Campany to the list. A few years old, but the definitive text on photography since 1970.
i've had a mind to revisit sontag again. but in that same vein, i'd encourage you to give a quick peek at barthes again. it's easy to dismiss him as sentimental the first go around, but really there's a lot more there than that...
forgot to mention (though you list looks as ungainly as my reading list at this point) one of the best photographers-for-photographers tomes i've ever picked up is hervé guibert's ghost image. good subway fare as well.